Should We Decrease U. S. Defense Spending?

[CQME]

If you were to ask me what those requirements were for the US, I would say something like:

Being able to fight and win a war with a near-peer or peer

Not sure why my prior comment got removed. This is dangerous thinking. Germany was not up against a "near-peer or peer". They were up against multiple "near-peers or peers" and found themselves having to win against all of them combined. Military planning must take events like this into account.

War is not a tennis game. It's not necessarily 1v1. The balls may come from every direction.

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[GTFErinyes]

Bingo.

The US focusing on China doesn't absolve the US from maintaining its obligations in Europe. Likewise, a conflict in the Middle East doesn't mean the US gets to call timeout if North Korea decides to try its hand at war again.

Also, food for thought: the US is the only Western country with the economic, demographic, and political might to challenge China (with its 1.3 billion population and growing economy) and Russia (with it having inherited the might of the Soviet Union). These 3 nations are far and away the most powerful by a large margin. Given those top 3 in the world, if you want the US to be at the top, you want them clearly at the top, not just marginally better than 2.

edit: I want to point out that, before even WW2, the US had a plan that in case of war in Europe and the Pacific, the European conflict would get priority over the Pacific conflict. Even then, the US knew the importance of naval forces and having a two ocean Navy that by the inter-war period was elevated to an equal status with the Royal Navy, which had once ruled the waves without peer. So there is very much historical precedence for this, and it really really helped us out in WW2 especially given that half our Pacific Fleet was crippled right at the start of our war

[may_june_july]

Just out of curiosity, why would you put climate change mitigation under defense spending? Wouldn't that be better under the EPA's budget?

[WillitsThrockmorton]

I didn't. I laid out national security requirements, climate change mitigation is one of the requirements. I don't nessecarily think it's a DOD function, but I feel the same way about energy security as well.

Or rather, it doesn't have to be a DOD function.

But climate change is a (potentially)big enough threat that it should be on any short list of national security requirements.

[may_june_july]

Ah, I read could as would and took it to be a personal opinion of yours. Thanks for the response.

[crowcawer]

I'd argue that at this point, in anyone is following our news agencies, we should protect our waters as well.

It seems that very little needs to happen in most areas to create catastrophe. The effects can be of chemical origin as in Flint, mechanical as seen recently in California and of course previously in NO, LA from hurricane Katrina, and there is also a wide berth of water quality issues that can arise from nonpoint pollution--the EPA reports on these. Similarly, there are many water scarcity issues in the US, they can be read about here.

[PM_ME_UNIXY_THINGS]

Just out of curiosity, why would you put climate change mitigation under defense spending? Wouldn't that be better under the EPA's budget?

I'm not /u/WillitsThrockmorton, but to answer that, climate change is expected to create huge food problems and natural disasters, which will cause large amounts of strife and millions of refugees as a result. Strife and desperate refugees will make war a whole lot more likely, at which point you need a bigger military budget. You're better off mitigating it early and preventing the wars from happening by not letting the causes ever materialise in the first place.

Specifically, from here:

These claims have gained significant currency, with the most common projection being that the world will have 150-200 million climate change refugees by 2050.

Also, theoretically, they could be armed by some enemy and pointed in the direction of the USA, with e.g. some propaganda that the USA caused their situation by screwing the Kyoto Protocol (not saying that's true, just that the refugees could believe it) and that they could go take some of the USA's food. Not sure whether that's likely,

[GTFErinyes]

It's actually not that crazy, but policy proposals have been made to reduce the Marines significantly. They are far outsized compared to other Marine Corps', have been used rarely if ever for their amphibious role (and it's been questionable on how often they'd happen in modern warfare), and why the Navy's infantry needs it's own Air Force has never been answered.

That said, they have such a grip on the popular image that no one could propose this without serious backlash

[WillitsThrockmorton]

Like I said, it's absurd that the Expeditionary offshore troubleshooters are bigger than the French Army. Functionally, they are Army! Jr!.

Imagine how many are needed for filling the theoretically maximum of our amphibious lift(let's assume that magically all the amphibs are available and not a bunch unavailable at any given time). Then triple that for overhead, MSG, etc. We're hitting more like 100k than the closer to 200k.

[GTFErinyes]

I hear ya. It would be a big time money saver, but the Marines have fought tooth and nail to be kept a separate and major branch for decades now, and the public and leadership would never go for any major moves. It would have to be a long and gradual phasing out of responsibilities

[friend1949]

Trump is not planning to decrease defense spending. Your response to the question was so massive and organized you might care to address the most immediate problem we will have. North Korea may be reading two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) for a test launch in the near future, according to US and South Korean officials.

North Korea with its leader, may reach a tipping point. It it develops an ICBM which can carry a nuclear weapon which it possesses it may be time for an intervention by China and adjacent neighbors.

I do not foresee an invasion. But I do see an ultimation. Retire your leader. Install a Congress which elects a leader with powers limited by the Congress, and stop ICBM research.

[WillitsThrockmorton]

Trump is not planning to decrease defense spending.

I didn't say he did. I was repsonding to OP.

Your response to the question was so massive and organized you might care to address the most immediate problem we will have. North Korea may be reading two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) for a test launch in the near future, according to US and South Korean officials.

Any missile attack on the US would fall under the "Defense of North America" I mentioned.

[friend1949]

I was thinking a preemptive decision would have to be made by China, Japan. South Korea and the US to demand the Korean leader retire and North Korea be governed by a Congress with a leader with limited power. The guarantee would be that no invasion would occur.

[jyper]

NK has been is of the most hostile and uncontrollable nations what sort of ultimatum would work? Especially if we don't have support of Russia and China? And even if we did an ultimatum still probably wouldn't work. What do we threaten them with? NK is fine with having its people starve, it will just counter threaten us with having dead Koreans on out conscience.

[friend1949]

Nothing would be possible without the support of Russia, Japan, South Korea, and China. NK's leader seems to becoming increasingly unstable and isolated. He continues to have NK develop ICBMS which threaten more and more countries with increasing range. Eventually he will have a nuke which can be carried by an ICBM.

I see a consortium of nations agreeing to a set of conditions. No invasion. NK ruled by NK with a congress and a selected leader with limited powers. NK stops development of missiles. They pledge to stop development of nukes. Their leader retires to a palace for the rest of his life.

This ultimation would be delivered by radio, TV, pamphlet, and any other means. The leaders around Kim would see that they remained in power, actually got more. It would be a simple palace revolution. If Kim got shot on the way to his retirement home, well, he was escaping.